Personal

Attending my friend Max Torres’ funeral this weekend was something that tugged at my soul. Having had no close relatives die in the last decade or so, this event was something that tugged violently for my attention. You see, we live in a culture that avoids the deeper lining of the word death. We avoid it, euphemize it, ridiculize or put it on the big screen to beat it with the latest technology or super power. Additionally, we act like spectators at a boxing or wrestling match that “play” with death and yell obscenities from the comfort of our seat but the moment we get death’s attention and he motions us to come to the ring, we gently sit down and pretend to ignore and go on with life consuming our popcorn and drinks.

This “play” with death is seen in our culture’s very denial or underestimation of it. With the recent Marvel comic theatrical revivals, superheroes seem to never die. In addition, while we entertain ourselves into oblivion, we never really expect to face the harsh reality of boredom, a boredom with reality that we are afraid to admit. I was made to pause this weekend. It was an unexpected pause to realize that I have been bored with reality. My friend’s passing was a sudden awakening of the possibility that this is not all there is. We are made for eternity but it seems like an eternity for us to grab a hold of this truth. Sure we enjoy our new Christian citizenship but we often get stuck in the gift shop with all the little things that life has to offer before we board the plane of ultimate reality. Singing songs and reciting ancient texts sometime do the opposite of keeping us alert, they usually gives us comfort – too much comfort – to the point of being comfortable. That is why death is so existentially uncomfortable. I guess this is where we realize that there is much more to life than life itself. Peter Kreeft touches this when he says,

The pregnant woman who plans a live birth cares for her unborn baby; the woman who plans for an abortion does not. Highways that lead somewhere are well maintained; dead ends are not. So if we see life as a road to heaven, some of heaven’s own glory will reflect back onto that road, if only by anticipation: the world is charged with the grandeur of God and every event smells of eternity. But if it all goes down the drain in death, then this life is just swirls of dirty water, and however comfortable we make our wallowing in it, it remains a vanity of vanities.

It is relatively easy to justify these existential questions with “the Bible says…” or “it has been said…,” sayings that are so a part of our traditions. However, unexpected events have a tendency to be, well – unexpected; and simple religious expressions do not seem to capture the full scope of what life and death is all about. That is why unexpected events are a reminder that we do not know all of the answers, that we do not even know all of the questions but that our very being and our hunger for truth presupposes that “there has to be much more than this!” A purely naturalist worldview cannot give you the answers that we long for. My professor used to say that if we constantly thirsty it’s because we know there is such a thing as water. How could we crave that which we were not designed to have or taste? Therefore, our soul’s thirst presupposes that there is something out there that is designed for us to have, “taste and see.”

My friend satisfied this lifelong curiosity by tasting and seeing that which his soul craved for and that while alive all he could do was to eat the breadcrumbs of satisfaction that fell off of the table of urban needs. His involvement with urban youth, his desire to help the poor and literally feed the hungry was but morsels of the things to come. That is why he was never satisfied and like the brave man that he was, he put his drink and popcorn down, and as the crowd gasped, he got onto the ring and faced death to set an example for all of us. May God bless us for he already blessed my friend Max.

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